


The New Atlantean Dictionary of Literary Terms: A Complete Reference in Four Volumes

by thingswithwings



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alien Cultural Differences, Alien Planet, Chromatic Character, Cultural Differences, F/F, F/M, Gen, Literary Theory, M/M, Multi, Pegging, Polyamory, Prison, Telepathy, Threesome, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-08
Updated: 2007-07-08
Packaged: 2017-10-24 03:28:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/258436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thingswithwings/pseuds/thingswithwings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anthropomorphism to Zeugma; the history of a city.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Volume I

**Author's Note:**

> **With special thanks to:** [](http://apple-pi.livejournal.com/profile)[**apple_pi**](http://apple-pi.livejournal.com/) for her serious and thoughtful critique of my Artistic Method (and plus for telling me that Kate Heightmeyer’s eyes are green, among other useful things), and to [](http://umbo.livejournal.com/profile)[**umbo**](http://umbo.livejournal.com/) for fixing the big structural problem that I didn’t even know was there, along with a bunch of little problems that I didn’t want to _admit_ were there. Seriously, both of you were amazingly helpful, and made a huge difference in the final product: thank you. Also, thanks to [](http://eruthros.livejournal.com/profile)[**eruthros**](http://eruthros.livejournal.com/) for listening to me talk about this thing a lot, because I went on about it quite a bit for a while there - like, there was this one time we were _swimming in a waterfall,_ and I was still talking about this fic. So thanks to her for patience, and also for suggesting topothesia.
> 
>   
> 

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A-G

**Anthropomorphism**

 _The attribution of uniquely human characteristics and qualities to nonhuman beings, inanimate objects, or natural or supernatural phenomena._

  
There’s something compelling in the way Sheppard braces one hand against the flat bulkhead of the jumper as he asks it to perform impossible stunts. Dodging Wraith darts, navigating asteroid fields, maintaining invisibility in the face of the Replicators’ latest scanning equipment – Rodney notices Sheppard as he takes his left hand from the controls and allows his palm to flatten against the cool metal, notices the way he mutters under his breath, sometimes, a near-incomprehensible litany of _c’mon-babys_ and _you-can-do-its_. Probably it’s a long habit, hard-won in the years that Sheppard has spent suspended above the ground in too-fragile aircraft, but maybe it’s something more: Rodney sees something more in it, something that comes from the city itself, from the way they occupy the city, suspended above the water, precious and delicate.

After some time in Atlantis, Rodney starts doing it, too, in the jumpers, under the control consoles, up to his elbows in command-chair wiring and desperate, helpless, muttering something that’s almost a prayer and almost a threat, bargaining, begging, bitching until the circuits heave and push and give him what he wants.

One time, Rodney is in the pilot’s seat and Sheppard’s beside him, riding shotgun. Sheppard’s left hand isn’t pressed to the machine, but rather to his abdomen, which is bleeding with frightening speed, red spilling over Sheppard’s legs and down to the floor below. In glimpses, Rodney can see something that he thinks are Sheppard’s intestines, glistening wet and white through his fingers.

Rodney’s right hand is on the controls. His left hand has taken up Sheppard’s usual position on the bulkhead without his realising it, pressing against the cool metal, fingernails scrabbling at the smooth surface. He hears himself muttering under his breath, Sheppard’s usual _I-love-you-baby-don’t-do-this_ and _c’mon-you-can-you-can-you-can-hold-on_ , over and over again as he clumsily dodges through enemy fire, preserved by luck if not by grace.

Finally, they’re at the gate, away from danger, and just before they hit the wormhole Rodney dares another glance at Sheppard, expecting to see him passed out, dead, collapsed in his chair.

Instead, Sheppard seems to be smiling a wan little smile, his eyes lingering on Rodney’s hand where it presses to the bulkhead and Rodney’s fingers on the controls. As they approach the wormhole, Sheppard reaches out with his right hand – the one not holding in his guts – and sets it on the starboard bulkhead, mirroring Rodney’s position on the other side of the jumper. Rodney feels time slow, lost in this moment of perfect connection, perfect understanding. His long fingers pressed to the ship’s skin, Sheppard holds Rodney’s gaze while the jumper cruises through the gate.

Then they are bathed in blue, and then they are in Atlantis, and then Sheppard is on his way to surgery and Rodney’s done, he did it.

A week later, after visiting the Colonel in the infirmary, Rodney swings by the jumper bay to run some standard maintenance. In one of the jumpers, on the bulkhead next to the copilot’s chair, John’s fingerprints are marked in blood. Rodney touches the stains with his fingers, almost reverently, before finding a rag and wiping them away.

  
 **Bildungsroman**

 _A German term meaning “formation novel.” Literally an “upbringing” or “education” novel: an account of the youthful development of a hero or heroine. It describes the processes by which maturity is achieved through the various ups and downs of life._

  
John never learned how to do this. He didn’t learn it from his dad, who left, and he didn’t learn it from his mom, who only spoke in silences, and no one else stepped in to teach him. So he finds himself overwhelmed by the new worlds that break open in front of him as he lies in his hospital bed: Elizabeth’s heartfelt _we were worried about you_ and Lorne’s _glad you’re all right, sir_ and Teyla’s _we need you back, you must get well soon_. Even Biro’s meaningless chatter as she fixes his IV or checks his bandages seems to carry an intimate fondness that strikes him at odd times.

Someone told Ronon about Earth hospital customs, but didn’t tell him quite enough, which means that he shows up at John’s door on the day he wakes up after the surgery with a bundle of fresh flowers in his hands. The sincerity of the gesture is absurdly touching, all these people who want him to know how they feel about him. John can’t stop looking at the bright yellow and red blossoms in the makeshift vase next to his bed, physical proof of easy affection.

Rodney comes by every day, and those visits are an education in themselves: Rodney talks about anything and everything, but his eyes flicker too often to John’s abdomen, bound by white gauze and medical tape. Rodney’s gaze on him is blatant, obvious, announcing itself in the same infuriating, incomprehensible way that Rodney always announces himself.

It’s almost as if – John thinks – it’s almost as if Rodney doesn’t mind that John can see his worry, or his fear, or his care.

  
 **Caesura**

 _From the Latin, “a cutting.” An audible pause that breaks up a line of verse. In most cases, caesura is indicated by punctuation marks which cause a pause in speech, and which may indicate a pause for breath: a comma, a semicolon, a full stop, an ellipsis, a dash, etc._

  
A few weeks later, and John doesn’t care how many earnest well-wishers want to tell him that they love him: he wants _out_. His wound itches, but the itch goes down deeper than that: he would give anything to get back to his life. The fear of pulling his stitches, though (as he just might have done a week before), gives him pause, binds him to the hospital bed and forces him still. He tries to breathe through it.

He still sleeps a lot, which is one of the ways they can tell that he’s not better yet, along with the gaping wound in his side. He wakes one morning, or maybe one afternoon, to find McKay by his bedside, which isn’t unusual except for two things. First, McKay’s asleep, slumped over in his chair like he’s been waiting a long time for John to wake up.

And second, McKay is holding his hand. Not a lot, just his fingers curled loosely around John’s index and middle fingers where they rest on the sheet, but it’s enough. He pulls his hand back without thinking about it, which wakes McKay up.

McKay looks at his hand where it still rests on the edge of the bed, his expression sleepy and confused.

“McKay, I don’t think . . .” John doesn’t know how to say it; hell, he doesn’t even know what the thing is that he doesn’t know how to say.

McKay nods at him, then stands. “I’ll see you later, Colonel,” he says, as he leaves. He sounds calm, normal, and John wonders if he was overthinking it. Maybe McKay didn’t see what John saw in those loosely curled fingers.

John breathes out. “Sounds good. Don’t forget you owe me a chess game,” he replies to McKay’s departing back. He gets a dismissive wave as Rodney shuffles out the door, just like always.

From there, things go on as usual, and John does his best to forget it.

Not too long after that, John’s released from the infirmary.

Not too long after _that_ , everything changes.

  
 **Deus Ex Machina**

 _Translated from the Latin, “god out of the machine.” In Greek drama a god was lowered onto the stage by a_ mechane _so that he could get the hero out of difficulties or untangle the plot. Today this phrase is applied to any unanticipated intervener who resolves a difficult situation._

  
When Rodney first found out about the Stargate and the aliens and so on, he assumed he was in for a life of science-fiction heroism, and he was, to some extent, correct. But he pictured himself as the guy who saves the day in all his favourite stories by Asimov, Wyndham, Zelazny – or, at worst, as Geordi in TNG. If he’d known that the Stargate program was strictly B-level scifi, he might’ve thought twice before signing up. It’s not until he’s spent a lot of time on Atlantis that he realises that he’s not Tom Baker in _Logopolis_ : he’s Colin Baker in _Terror of the Vervoids_ , doomed to fight his heroic fight against the Pegasus galaxy’s equivalent of unconvincing stuntmen in duct-taped foam suits.

He comes to this realisation one day while the City is under attack from sentient vegetables from outer space.

If Sheppard makes one, even _one_ , _Attack of the Killer Tomatoes_ joke, Rodney is going to kill him dead.

But the problem is that, when you’re trapped in B-movie scifi, you have no choice but to take it seriously, because the people around you are real people who are really going to get real dead if you don’t take seriously the threat of, yes, killer cucumbers from beyond the stars.

The botanists, finally given their moment to shine, don’t think they could come up with a proper herbicide without three weeks’ debate and a lot more computer power. The jumper pilots, doing their best to keep the enemy tendrils from the city spires, are finding themselves seriously outmaneuvered by the little bio-ships, which all work organically in perfect concert. And, even if Brown and Parrish could come up with something that would do real damage to the deadly flora, Rodney and Zelenka have no way of engineering a delivery system without knowing a lot more about the way the drones function.

When Rodney breaks these problems down into their basic components, he comes up with: processing power, response time, knowledge. So he runs for the chair room, Zelenka keeping pace just behind him.

“Rodney, it has never been tested, we do not even really know what it does – ” Zelenka protests, when he sees the systems Rodney’s trying to access.

“It’s this, or we get eaten alive by spinach, Radek, and if you have a better plan I would love to hear it,” Rodney snarls back, his fingers flying over the controls.

Zelenka pauses. “I’ll get Colonel Sheppard,” he says finally, and runs off.

Sheppard, who had been machete-ing his way through the corridors with Ronon, Teyla, and Elizabeth in an attempt to regain control of the gate room, shows up sweaty, covered in scratches, and under protest. By then, Rodney’s finished entering the commands into the system: he’s got it online and it looks as ready as it’ll ever be. All they need is someone to initialize them.

“Get in the chair,” Rodney instructs him brusquely, “And think about local area networks.”

“What? McKay, I don’t have time for this!” But Zelenka pushes him down into the control chair. It lights up, and the system takes over as Rodney’s programmed it to do. Sheppard blinks, then closes his eyes and then Rodney can feel it, Sheppard, Atlantis, whispering into his mind and over his thoughts. The look on Radek’s face says that he can feel it too, but Rodney didn’t need to look at Radek’s face to know that.

He doesn’t know what he expected, but it wasn’t this: wasn’t this feeling of snapping suddenly into place, connections flooding into his mind. He can’t see them, but he knows what Ronon and Teyla are doing, where Elizabeth is, what kind of attack run Evan’s making in the jumper, the biochemical compounds that Katie’s trying to duplicate in her lab. And everyone else, the people he doesn’t know, they’re in his mind equally, or he’s in theirs: Marines and bacteriologists and medical technicians and everyone.

Then John takes control, and Rodney sighs, relieved: John starts allocating resources, having picked up the function of this network from Rodney and Radek. The botanists confer, and with hundreds of brains tied into the Atlantis mainframe, the solution is arrived at quickly. The Marines concentrate their hack-and-slash efforts on the greenhouses, taking back the resources they’ll need to create the weapon, and as Rodney and Radek absorb information on the drones, the theoretical model of a delivery system that they construct in their minds is instantly made reality by Sarah and Miko down in the engineering labs.

Outside, Evan’s jumper squadron is suddenly in perfect synchrony, weakening the one point on the main bio-ship that Katie has identified as the place to deliver their weapon.

For six hours, long enough to manufacture the weapon, deliver it, and clean up the mess afterwards, they stay like that, their united purpose and direction singing under Rodney’s skin. Rodney doesn’t know why they’d ever go back, except that the console in the chair room starts beeping at him, something about dangerous levels of physical and mental stress, and Elizabeth makes him shut it down.

He feared – many of them had feared – that they would feel lonely, afterwards, but he feels anything but: he doesn’t remember people’s secrets or their thoughts or even – unfortunately – their first names, but he does remember the _them_ of them all, their pettiness and love and their dedication to their city. For a solid week after their miraculous last-minute rescue, Rodney has to viciously squash the urge to hug everyone he passes in the corridors. Instead, he smiles at them, and they smile back, everyone grinning at each other like lunatics who got into the good medication.

“I think the city needs a cigarette,” John drawls, unable like the rest of them to keep from grinning with recognition. It looks good on him.

Sometimes, maybe it is _Logopolis_ , after all.

  
 **Ekphrasis**

 _The intense pictorial description of physical reality (an object, scene, or person). This very broad term has been limited by some to the description of art-objects, and even to the self-description of “speaking” art-objects._

  
After the battle with the plant life-forms, Teyla watches as the people on Atlantis become suddenly closer. There’s a feeling of easiness in the city, a trust and a comfort of which Teyla approves – it reminds her of her community on Athos – but she finds herself less comfortable with certain other repercussions of what John calls their “mind-meld.” Leaving out the rather egregious acts of public lewdness that she witnessed accidentally in the first few days after the incident – and she will have to tell Elizabeth and Radek that the conference room is _not_ soundproofed - Teyla is simply touched more often. Elizabeth stands closer to her, bumping their shoulders companionably as they walk; Ronon is more likely to wrap her up in those exuberant embraces of his; even John’s fingers will occasionally find her arm or hand, will brush against her in the field or at lunch.

Perhaps as a result of this, she spends more time with Kate. Kate, Teyla knows, has been trained in schooling her body and voice to project empathy without encouraging intimacy.

“Would you like to get some lunch?” Teyla asks, popping her head into Kate’s open office door.

Kate smiles – Kate always smiles – and puts down the computer tablet she was working on. “I would love some lunch, Teyla, thank you.” Kate always uses her name.

At the table in the mess hall, they fall into their usual topics of conversation – the silliest aspects of Teyla’s off-world missions, Kate’s stories about her schooling on Earth, their shared worries about Atlantis morale, the latest Wraith or Replicator threat. But, as has been happening more and more often during their meetings, Teyla begins to drift a little. One part of her remains in the conversation, but the other keeps pausing to notice the way that Kate’s hair falls over one shoulder, or her smooth palms and fingertips (she talks with her hands), or the soft line of her collarbone where it disappears into her shirt. Kate’s body is as artfully crafted as her manner, as her empathy. Her eyes, warm and green, express no more or less than she intends from beneath her sculptured eyebrows; her soft, painted lips remain firmly closed as she chews carefully, and seem to smile independently of her eyes; her clothing is pressed and neat, covering the curves of her breasts and hips as if with armor.

Sometimes, Teyla feels as if Kate ought to be messed up a bit, that she ought to get her hands on that lush, warm body and rub it till it reddens just a little. Sometimes, Teyla imagines that Kate is crying out for touch, from behind her sculpted beauty.

“Are you all right?” Kate asks, concerned. “You seem lost in thought.”

Teyla smiles reassuringly. “I was; I apologise. My mind has been elsewhere lately.”

Mostly, Teyla is content to look from across the distance, to catalogue Kate’s body in her mind as if creating a map for a land she’ll never travel, and to discuss, calmly, the state of Atlantis morale.

  
 **Frame-Tale**

 _A story which contains either another tale, a story within a story, or a series of stories._

  
There’s no point in going back. Ronon won’t get any more hunting done on this trip than on the last, with Zelenka’s equipment scaring everything away. But Atlantis is a lot of people – he grew up in a city of hundreds of thousands, but Atlantis is a lot of people – and when Zelenka asks, tentatively, the itch under Ronon’s skin answers _yes_. He’d rather be alone, but Zelenka’s busy with his scans, so he doesn’t bug Ronon too much.

He has John drop him off on the other side of the little island from the science equipment, and spends most of the day hiking back. He already spends a lot of time hiking through forests on off-world missions, but this is different. He feels more himself, alone.

At night, when the equipment is turned off and the island is quiet, it’s nice. When Ronon gets to camp, Zelenka has already set up the tent and piled sticks and tinder for the fire.

“You’re pretty good at that,” Ronon remarks as he breaks from the treeline.

Zelenka jumps a little. Ronon snickers.

“Yes, yes, you’re quite frightening.” Zelenka frowns at the little ring of stones beside his knees. “I built many fires when I was young.”

“No electricity?”

“Not everyone comes from rich countries like Colonel Sheppard’s.”

Ronon sits himself down on a rock across from Zelenka. After a moment, the fire is blazing up, breaching the oncoming darkness.

“Did you kill anything that we can eat?” Zelenka looks up at him hopefully as he sits crosslegged on the other side of the fire. Ronon just glares at him.

“Okay, sorry, I did not run the equipment as loudly this time.”

Ronon snorts.

“Why did you come, if you knew I would be here?” Zelenka asks finally.

“S’good to get away.” Ronon pulls two MREs out of his pack and hands one to Zelenka.

After a while, Zelenka speaks again. “You know, when I was young, my father used to tell stories by the fire.”

Ronon looks up from his meal and grins sharply before taking another bite. “Yeah, mine too,” he says around a mouthful of food.

“Really? What kind?”

“Usual stuff. Old stories about the Ancestors, or about the Ring.”

“Ronon, I did not grow up in your galaxy; I have never heard any of these old stories.” Zelenka gestures impatiently with a fork.

Ronon shrugs. “I could tell you one.”

Zelenka nods his approval. “Please.”

“Okay.” Ronon tries to remember the best stories that his father had told. “Well, there was this one, about an Ancestor.”

 _They say there was this Ancestor who got tired of living in their city, so he left and came through the Ring to Sateda._

 _But he didn’t want anyone to know that he was an Ancestor, because then everyone on Sateda would want him to use his power to help them with their problems, and this guy was sick of listening to everyone’s problems all the time. That’s why he left the city._

 _So he decided not to chance it, and lived in the forest by himself. And he liked it, and he lived there a long time, just living in the forest where it’s quiet._

“Hey, I said I was sorry,” Zelenka protests.

“Shhhh, Doc. This story isn’t about you.”

 _So the Ancestor lived in the forest a long time, because this is when the Wraith were sleeping, so it was pretty peaceful. And he was happy, but without any humans or other Ancestors for company, he got lonely. So one day he walked out into the forest and met a ritock, which is sort of like the animal in that episode of Buffy, what was it called? A bear. It was like a bear._

 _And it turned out that the ritock was pretty lonely too, because there was a plague that killed its family. They talked for a while, and eventually they went back to the ritock’s cave and had sex._

“He has sex with the bear.”

“The ritock,” Ronon corrects.

 _So the ritock said, hey, you should live here with me in this cave. And the Ancestor said, look, I can’t sleep in a cave all the time. So they compromised, and they ended up spending the winters in the Ancestor’s house in the woods, and the summers in the ritock’s cave by the stream. Which would’ve worked out fine, except the Ancestor never got around to telling the ritock that he was an Ancestor; he just let him assume that he was a human from Sateda._

 _But then one day the Wraith woke up, and came to Sateda, and the Ancestor didn’t know what to do. He liked living in the cave with the ritock, but he had a duty to his people now that the Wraith were awake again. So he made a machine that cast a shield over Sateda, so that nothing can come in or go out._

 _But this is also back in the days when there were spaceships on Sateda, so even though the shield protected the Ancestor and the ritock and all of the humans, it meant that no one could take the spaceships up to fight the Wraith. And none of the spaceships were small enough to go through the Ring. So even though the Satedan warriors heard terrible stories from people who came through the Ring, they couldn’t help._

“Couldn’t the Wraith send in darts through the gate?”

 _And the Wraith couldn’t send darts in through the gate because the Ancestor put a shield over that too, so that only people could come through. Anyway, the Satedan scientists figured out where the shield is coming from, and they tracked it down to the ritock’s cave. But the ritock wouldn’t let the scientists in, because he wanted to protect the Ancestor’s machine._

 _Just then, the Ancestor came by and found out what was going on. It turned out that the scientists had come to turn off the shield, because they wanted to be able to use their spaceships to fight the Wraith. In the end, though, the Ancestor got very mad – he said that the Satedans were dumb for wanting to throw their lives away like that. As they argued, the ritock got angrier and angrier, and eventually freaked out and killed all the Satedan scientists and ate them._

“I do not think I understand some of the literary themes in this story.”

“Shut up.”

 _The Ancestor was in despair, because he didn’t want any of the Satedans to die, but even with his force field, they were dying on the planet because of him. Also, he didn’t think he could live in the cave with the ritock anymore, now that it was eating people. So he came clean with the ritock, and told it that he was an Ancestor, not a Satedan, and that he’d used his machine to set up the shield. But the ritock felt so betrayed that it attacked the Ancestor, too. So the Ancestor killed the ritock, and buried it by the river where it had liked to sleep. Then he took the shield down, like the scientists wanted, and let the Satedans fight the Wraith._

Ronon pauses, then casts his eyes to the dirt. “My father used to end here by saying, and he stayed in the forest alone from then on, and still lives there to this day.”

Radek doesn’t speak for a long time. Then he clears his throat noisily.

“You know, this reminds me of a story we had about a woman who was forced to marry a basilisk.”

“What’s a basilisk?” Ronon asks.

“Well,” Radek says, before pausing thoughtfully, as if wondering where to begin.

 _It seems that, in the old days, there was a woman who had three daughters. One day, when she was going to the market, she promised to bring them each gifts. And the first two daughters asked for jewels and fine foods and new slippers and the latest books. But the third daughter asked only for three roses . . ._

  
 **Georgic**

 _A poem about rural life and husbandry, so called from the Greek word for “earth worker, farmer.” This is a form of didactic poetry and its principal purpose is to give instructions on how to do something._

  
Their first mission after John returns to field work is pretty much a milk run. John doesn’t mind, though, because P8N-2Z3 is all green and rolling fields lined with copses of wild trees and pools of bright flowers, as if it was terraformed by Tolkien. They’ve been here before and managed not to make a complete mess of it, so they’re greeted with cheerful smiles and waves and the kind of children who stick to your legs.

“You’ve arrived on our Harvest-day!” the leader, Mirla, explains, when she can finally be located. She’s covered in grain dust and there’s a smudge of dirt high on her cheek. Her salt and pepper hair is falling down from its loose bun in a way that makes John want to reach out and tuck the escaped strands behind her ear for her.

Teyla peels a toddler from her knees and steps forward. “Our apologies; we did not know. Shall we return for trade on another day?”

“No, no, no no no!” Mirla laughs, holding up her hands as if to hold them all in place. “Honestly, it’s wonderful that you’re here; we’re pretty short on able-bodied farmhands since we had that sickness last month. The new medications are working very well, by the way,” she answers John’s inquisitive look at the mention of the illness. “If you four pitch in, I’ll knock twenty percent off the price of the finished product.”

“That is . . . extremely generous,” Teyla says, impressed with this offer.

“Not at all! The crops are only good if you harvest while they bloom, and they only bloom two days of the year. Leave your gear in the guest house, there are sacks and scythes in the barn. Come find me when you’re ready.” Then, with her usual brusque energy, she hurries off to put some lollygagging teenagers back to work. Her cotton dress swirls around her ankles as she hops the short fence that surrounds the blooming field.

John blinks. “Okay, team, it sounds like we’re farmhands for the rest of the mission.” He shrugs. He half-expects McKay to start immediately bitching about allergies or manual labour, but that quarter is curiously silent. When he looks over, Rodney is sniffing the air curiously, as if completely surprised that the vast fields of purple flowers aren’t causing immediate issues relating to swelling and mucous.

“You gonna be okay with your injury?” Ronon asks, his eye catching the way that John still slightly favours his left side.

“I’m fine,” John scoffs.

“You’re not lifting anything heavy,” Ronon says. Teyla backs him up with a firm glare.

John holds up his hands in defeat. “Okay, okay, I’ll be the guy on the scythe.” At the guest house, they store their stuff, stripping down to t-shirts and trousers.

“Shouldn’t Ronon take the scythe? I mean, he’s the tallest.” Rodney’s got that light in his eyes that he gets when he’s being clever.

“Nah, I wear more black than he does,” John answers. “And I’ve named one of the puddlejumpers Binky.” Rodney laughs. His teeth and eyes are bright in the sunshine as they walk to the barn.

“What are you talking about?” Ronon seems unusually tolerant of their references to Earth-culture. Maybe he’s infected by the sunshine, too. He’s also got a little girl stuck to his calf that he either hasn’t noticed or doesn’t care about; John debates telling him about it, but then decides that it’s too cute.

“Oh, on Earth, we sometimes personify Death as a tall, thin guy, dressed in black robes, carrying a scythe. He harvests people’s lives with it, see – ” Rodney takes a rather ill-advised swing with the scythe that he’s just picked up. Teyla ducks the blade and then takes it from him easily.

“That’s very interesting, but perhaps you could avoid a physical demonstration today, Rodney,” Teyla says, teasing. Rodney goes a little red, but Teyla pats him on the shoulder reassuringly.

“We have a story about Death on Sateda, too,” Ronon says. “Except it’s a little woman who creeps in windows and down chimneys at nighttime to steal the breath from your lungs and the memories from your eyes.”

“Creepy,” Rodney says, picking up a stack of burlap sacks.

“Sort of. She also fights the Wraith, in the stories.”

“Well, then, perhaps I should be the one to wield the scythe,” Teyla says, taking a few practice swings with it herself before stopping to frown at the blade. “Though it is not properly sharpened, I’m afraid.”

“Well, you’re not hacking through bone with it, Teyla,” John says, rolling his eyes. “Jeez. What a group of farmers we make.”

Turns out, though, that they do make a pretty good group of farmers. Rodney and Ronon haul the finished product and man the wheelbarrow while John and Teyla take turns scything and getting the plants into the sacks. Everything has to be properly sorted: the stalks will be ground down for flour, and the tuber-roots washed and stored in cool cellars, but the bright purple flowers and their thick, crunchy green leaves are apparently a delicacy, to be served at feasts for the next week; they get sorted into the wheelbarrows and taken directly to the kitchens. Mirla comes by a few times to see how they’re doing, surprised by their progress.

“For a group of bumbling off-worlders, you do pretty well,” she says, holding out a dipper of water to each of them in turn. When Rodney wipes his mouth with his sleeve, a little dirt migrates onto his cheek.

“We’re doing what we can,” John agrees amiably.

“Yes yes, but I don’t suppose you have anything to eat, do you? Since we’re expected to toil in the hot sun . . .” Teyla puts a warning hand on Rodney’s shoulder.

“Oh, help yourselves to the _ylse_ flowers as you go!” Mirla answers. “We prepare them in many ways, as the elders are doing right now in the kitchens, but they’re pretty tasty raw.” She demonstrates, carefully tearing the petals and leaves away from the plant with her teeth.

Teyla squeezes Rodney’s shoulder again, preemptively.

Mirla is distracted, anyway, before Rodney can let her know what he thinks about eating flower petals for lunch.

“Oh, Tam, there you are,” she says, scooping up the girl who’d been attached to Ronon’s calf throughout the morning until she’d fallen off in the early afternoon (“Why didn’t you tell me that was there?” Ronon had asked. They’d all shrugged. “I didn’t notice,” John had lied).

Once Mirla’s wandered off, John tries one of the flowers. The petals are thick and juicy, like the leaves, and taste like . . .

“Cherries,” he says, thoughtfully. The leaves taste sort of minty.

“What? Gimme.” McKay snatches a flower from the bucket for himself.

Hours later, they’re all sticky and dirty, so accept gladly (or, in McKay’s case, grudgingly) the offer of fresh clothes before heading to the feast. Once there, they get set up very nicely at the head table, where they’re served delicate petal-tarts and rich tuber-stews and it’s all pretty great until the kissing starts.

John doesn’t get any warning, just Mirla’s lips suddenly on his, sweet with the juice from the tarts.

“Wha?” he says, intelligently, as she pulls away.

“You don’t have this custom? You have to pass it down the line.” Mirla points at Ronon, seated next to John. Mirla, at the head of the huge table, then turns the other way and kisses the woman on her right – soft lips, no tongue, as she kissed John – who kisses the next person, and so on.

“It’s good luck,” Mirla says. “Don’t worry, it doesn’t imply anything sexual.” John could swear that her eyes are fucking _twinkling._

John half-turns to Ronon, as if to ask him to form a united anti-kissing front, but the guy just shrugs, puts his hands on either side of John’s face (surprisingly gentle) and plants one on him. It’s a little rough, but slower and wetter than John might have expected, had he been expected to expect such a thing in the first place. Ronon’s beard tickles. Then it’s over, and Ronon turns to Teyla, and John feels strangely disappointed.

Ronon’s kiss with Teyla is easy, even a little dirty, the two of them familiar with each other in a way that makes John wonder about them once again. Then Teyla pulls back, and smiles, and turns to Rodney, who’s been silent through the whole affair, and looks more than a little apprehensive.

Teyla just gets one hand on his neck and pulls him in, and John watches their lips as they slide together, watches the angle of Rodney’s jaw as he tilts his head to let Teyla’s tongue slip into his  
mouth, just a little. John shifts in his seat, feels like a pervert but can’t stop watching.

Then Rodney turns to the person beside him, one of the farmers, a handsome, olive-skinned young man with hair bleached by the sun. Rodney darts in and pecks him on the lips. No – not pecks, really; smooches might be more accurate. Their mouths make a smacking sound that John can hear three seats away. McKay pulls back quickly, but the farmer grabs him by the collar and pulls him back in again for a fast kiss that looks much hotter than the last. Then the guy winks at McKay before spinning in his chair to the man on his other side.

Rodney blushes bright red, and, turning back in his chair, catches John looking at him. His blush fading, Rodney tilts his head and furrows his eyebrows at John in that way he does when he’s met a new piece of Ancient technology.

John goes back to his petal-tarts.

The night is spent in the village’s guest-house, which is like a cross between a military barracks and a country-house B&B there are ten beds, lined against the walls in two neat rows of five, each covered in bright, fluffy quilts and big, soft pillows. John watches his team burrow under the covers, exhausted from the day’s labour in the warm sunshine, and is almost content.

In the bed next to his, Rodney’s done a face-plant into the pillow, barely beneath the covers before he falls asleep. His cheeks are pink from the sun.

-

The next day is much the same: cutting, and packing, and hauling, eating his fill of the crunchy, minty leaves and the warm bread that gets brought by at mid-day, and trying not to turn his back on Ronon when he has the wheelbarrow (the man’s a menace).

“I know I’m not usually much for this kind of thing, but I have to say, this is kind of nice,” Rodney says as they break for water in the midafternoon. “It reminds me of the summers on my uncle’s farm in Manitoba, when I was a kid.”

John raises an eyebrow. “Your parents shipped you off to a farm in the summers? And you liked it?”

“Oh _hell_ no, are you kidding? I hated it. I ran away four times before I figured out that there was nowhere to run to. But looking back on it now, it doesn’t seem so bad.” Rodney smiles up into the rustling tree branches above them. Serenity isn’t a common look for Rodney, but it suits him in this moment, resting in the cool shade, the collar of his shirt damp with sweat, his face relaxed. When John takes the water bottle from Rodney’s hands and drinks, the spout is warm where Rodney’s lips were a moment ago.

-

They’re early to the feast that night, having finished their allotted field. Mirla is delighted with the progress they’ve made, and is chatting amiably with Rodney at the long table when John comes in to the feast hall. There are a few people seated here and there, scattered along the table, but no one at the head of the table except for Mirla and Rodney.

John doesn’t allow himself to stop and think about it. He just sits down in the chair next to Rodney’s and slouches comfortably, joining in the conversation.

Rodney looks surprised, but doesn’t say anything right away. When Mirla gets up to go check on the food preparations, he rubs his thumb against his index finger nervously.

“Uh. Are you sure you want to sit there?” he manages, finally.

John gives him his best innocent smile. “I’m good.” He takes it as a positive sign that Rodney doesn’t get up to change seats.

But it turns out that the kissing-custom is only on the first night of the feast; after the meal, no one initiates any ritualized makeout sessions at all. John is surprised by his own sense of relief. Rodney doesn’t meet his eyes on the way back to the guest house.

They head back to Atlantis the next day, fresh-scrubbed but in their rumpled uniforms, hauling their first installment of food in Ronon’s favourite wheelbarrow: tubers and flowers that they harvested themselves, with their own hands. The sun is warm on his shoulders, and his team is all around him, and John is almost content.


	2. Volume II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> H-M

**Hyperbole**

 _A Greek word meaning “overshooting.” Bold overstatement, or the extravagant exaggeration of fact or of possibility._

 

On Earth, few scientists or lab technicians ever stuck around long enough to really appreciate Rodney McKay’s managerial style.

On Atlantis, the physics and engineering teams, along with the various department heads, have all, for the most part, made their peace with it. The new recruits still get caught out by it sometimes: they hear “Oh my god, we’re all going to die in thirty seconds,” and dive under their desks, even though Miko and Coleman know that this really means, “If I hadn’t caught this problem, something may have had the potential to explode on the west pier next Thursday.” They’ll hear, “If you don’t properly align that circuitry pattern, you will fry your own brain and leave yourself a vegetable,” and they take it seriously, hands shaking as they concentrate on their task. But Esposito and Watson know that this really means, “Do it right or you could receive a mild shock.” The new guys don’t know that “It is not humanly possible for this to be fixed!” is almost always followed by Rodney fixing whatever-it-is before lunch.

The thing is, McKay can sell it: eyes wide with fear, hands gripping the control consoles, throwing things, dropping things, cursing, yelling. He’s really very method, mostly because he believes it himself. So even the old hands, the people who’ve been around since the beginning, can sometimes get caught up in it, find themselves running through corridors at full tilt to fix an inconsequential crossed wire, or working frantically without sleep to finish routine water-system analyses.

So, when the crises do happen, McKay’s barked orders and dire imprecations have a bizarre twofold effect: everyone assumes that it’s not as bad as he says it is, even when it is, and so they work calmly and avoid panic. But they’re so used to acting as if it really is as bad as he says it is, even when it’s not, that they sprint down corridors and work into the night at times when sprinting and sleeplessness are actually necessary to keep the city from blowing up.

Ambrose suspects himself to be the victim of behavioural conditioning of the kind outlawed by all kinds of international law, but he isn’t too broken up about it. He hasn’t done this much good work since grad school, which was, of course, the other time that he was in constant fear for his life.

Miko gets so used to pronouncements of doom that, whenever Rodney is off-world for a few days, she finds herself taking up the slack, dropping things and throwing things and yelling and going wide-eyed with fear a bit herself. Esposito and Coleman seem to appreciate it, picking up their tablet computers and making a dash for those crossed wires like they’re off to save nunneries full of orphans and kittens.

When Rodney gets back from two days of harvesting purple flowers (or, as the science division will hear it, trade negotiations), he watches with delight as his minions scurry about the lab. He really is the best manager ever.

 

 **In Medias Res**

 _This phrase, the Latin for “into the middle of things,” has become almost a cliché to describe a common method of beginning a story – in other words, starting in the midst of the action at some crucial point, when a good deal has already happened._

 

Teyla slides her hands under Kate’s ass and pulls forward, angling her hips upward, getting her own naked body between Kate’s spread thighs. Kate’s muscles are pleasingly strong against Teyla’s hard shoulders. Then Teyla gets her mouth on Kate’s sex, wasting no time, pushing her tongue inside: hot and slick.

It’s been so long since Teyla’s done this, tasted a woman, given in to this urge. Athosian women bear children to raise against the Wraith; they don’t turn to each other except for occasional pleasure or comfort. Teyla has always rationed it out. Kate makes noise as Teyla tongues her, sucks her, gets fingers up inside and begins to stroke against the fluttering clench of her body. Little gasps, little moments of breath lost, but they stoke the fire low in Teyla’s belly: they’re not weighed or considered, not thoughtful or kind. Kate groans low and greedy and her breath stutters and Teyla can’t help but want more, want to wring those throaty sounds out from between her bitten lips.

Kate showed up at Teyla’s door with a bottle of wine and a gleam in her eye; Teyla’s participated in enough seductions that she understood Kate’s meaning immediately, though she did not understand what had changed to lead Kate to this decision – why now, why this night. Perhaps Kate has been rationing herself, too. They’d sipped the wine, and talked their usual talk while Kate toed off her shoes and touched Teyla’s shoulder casually, and then Teyla leaned over and kissed her throat, slowly, with precision.

Custom dictates that days should pass between the declaration and the act, that formal words be said by both parties, that everyone should make their intentions clear. Teyla had set her lips into the dip between Kate’s collarbones and forgotten each custom in turn as she tasted the sweet-salt of her freckled skin.

As Kate comes under Teyla’s mouth, around her fingers, Teyla gives up thoughts of rationing, gives up on taking things slowly, on doing this in stages: she will take it all now, here, every noise and shudder and drop of sweat that Kate has to give. The roughened heel of Kate’s foot scrapes against the smooth skin of Teyla’s back as her whole body shudders and releases, her muscles trembling. Teyla squeezes her eyes shut, living in the taste and smell and feel of her, hot and slippery beneath her mouth.

Eventually, Teyla eases off, gentling her hand as Kate comes back down, allowing herself one last chaste kiss to the soft flesh of her sex before sliding back up Kate’s body and kissing her, kissing her, kissing her.

 

 **Juxtaposition**

 _A placing or being placed in nearness or contiguity, or side by side, often done in order to compare and contrast the two, to show similarities or differences. In literature, a contrast in register or style; in logic, a observational fallacy in which two items placed next to each other seem to have a correlation when none is actually claimed._

 

“What do you want me to do?” Kate asks, her thumb on Teyla’s nipple, her thigh pressing hard between Teyla’s legs.

“Just touch me,” Teyla answers, squirming under her hands.

“Like this?”

“Yes, oh – ”

Kate runs her other hand down Teyla’s bicep, over her soft belly and down to find her clit, pushing her body against Teyla’s, lips hands thighs tongue, sliding skin on skin, their eyes locked as Teyla’s orgasm rushes through her, as Teyla arches and gasps against her.

Kate slows her fingers and is about to pull her hand back up when Teyla’s fingers close on her wrist.

“Just, if you will just, a little more.” Teyla guides Kate’s fingers back over her clit, their hands working in tandem against Teyla’s bare flesh. Kate watches as Teyla closes her eyes against her second orgasm.

Kate finds herself collapsed on top of her, their limbs akimbo, her breasts against Teyla’s belly. Teyla is gorgeous beneath her, hair damp against her temples, nipples tight and flushed dark. Kate pushes herself off the bed and finds her underwear.

“You are leaving?” Teyla’s tone is light and easy; not accusatory at all. Kate is grateful for the relaxed attitude that the Athosians take to lesbian sex; it’s been too long since she’s had this kind of release. Looking over her shoulder as she hooks her bra, Kate notices the inviting expanse of rumpled sheets next to Teyla on the bed, the space where she could curl her body against Teyla’s warmth.

“I have an early-morning client, I’m afraid,” Kate says.

“Will we do this again?”

Kate imagines doing this every night, imagines frantic fucking and long evenings of slow exploration, imagines her hands spanning Teyla’s body in time, coming to know every inch of her skin. Kate imagines the feel of Teyla’s fingers in her ass, the way she could rub herself off against Teyla’s thigh, imagines those white teeth scraping her nipples.

“Maybe,” Kate answers, smiling openly as she buttons her fly. “I had such a good time tonight, but I also really value you as a friend, and I don’t want that to change. Sometimes it’s best for everyone to keep these things at a casual level.”

Teyla nods slowly. “Perhaps,” she says.

Kate picks up the empty wine bottle from earlier in the evening. “You want me to take this to the recycling for you?”

“That would be fine, thank you.”

Kate pauses before the bed. Teyla’s still naked amid the folds of the sheets, skin glowing dark and golden in the soft lamplight. She could be posing for a Greek statue, one knee drawn up slightly, resting back on her elbows, hair falling over her bare shoulders. Kate could go back, at least, could kiss her soft mouth again before she leaves, could let the gesture say: you’re so beautiful, I loved doing this with you, I can’t wait to see you again tomorrow.

She smiles gently and doesn’t kiss Teyla. “You are so beautiful. I loved this.” She pauses. “See you for lunch tomorrow?”

Teyla smiles back at her and nods her assent.

Kate leaves.

 

 **Kunstlerroman**

 _A German term for a novel which has an artist (in any creative art) as the central character and which shows the development of the artist from childhood to maturity and later._

 

Even as a kid, Evan knew that it wasn’t the kind of thing you talked about. The art classes that his mom taught at the community college were full of eager young men and women with experimental hair who took it seriously, but the art classes in his school were full of stoners who couldn’t be trusted in the automotive shop. If anyone had learned that Evan liked painting, it would’ve been the end of his cool and the beginning of his getting-beaten-up. His mom always assured him that the other kids would be impressed if they could just see how good he was, but that was its own set of problems: his paintings weren’t exactly the kind you can show the guys on the football team.

Since his mom taught on Saturday afternoons when Evan didn’t have school, he would go in to the college with her and paint at her teaching studio with her students. The problem was, the only thing she ever seemed to teach was figure drawing. As a result, by the time Evan was fifteen, he had dozens of portraits of naked men in his closet dating back years: charcoal and oil and mixed media on the top, with watercolours just below them, and, if he digs far enough, canvasses covered in non-toxic fingerpaints. There’s one of a particularly well-endowed middle-aged man done in crayon that his mother was always especially proud of. Evan was in high school before he convinced her to take it off the fridge.

His first year in college, he talks a girl he’s in love with into letting him paint her, her nervous giggles and messy hair a stark contrast to the professional models he’d painted in his mother’s studio. She’s not the first naked woman he’s ever painted, but she’s the first person he’s ever seen like this, beautiful and familiar under his soft brushstrokes. They date for almost a year before they break up in one of those famous screaming matches that everyone in the dorm gets to listen in on. At the time, Evan wanted to destroy his paintings of her, but they remain pristine, stacked neatly at the back of his closet.

He paints a lot, after that, a few nudes, but mostly clothed models: women he dates, best friends, and when he’s home for Christmas, one of his mother. He only tells the people he trusts, and he only paints the people he tells. Every now and then, he tries a landscape or a still life, but it comes out all wrong, every time. He can’t paint without the meanings that bodies hold in their angles, in their lines of muscle and their yielding curves.

He joins the Air Force on the same day he graduates from college, and he never looks back. There are no easels or brushes in OTC, nor are there flurries of art appreciation societies. Sometimes he wants to tell his fellow cadets, _I wish I could paint you_ , but there’s no way to explain it. Still, these men (and Cadet O’Riley, their female recruit) are closer to him than anyone else in his life, and so sometimes, at night, he lies in his bed in the barracks and sketches secretly, charcoal between his fingers, capturing the faces of the sleeping cadets around him.

His first week in Atlantis, he walks into Colonel Sheppard’s office to find him sitting on his desk – on a stack of forms to be submitted to the SGC, actually – practicing intently with a yo-yo. He coughs.

“Oh, hey, Major, what’s up?” Sheppard doesn’t stop yo-yoing.

“Sir, far be it from me to say, but aren’t you worried about sending the wrong, ah, professional impression?” He glances at the yo-yo (which is bright red and lights up when it’s in motion) in what he hopes is a meaningful manner.

“Oh, right, all that stuff. You know, Major, we do things a little differently on Atlantis. I know you’re new, but really,” the Colonel grins blindingly while he takes the yo-yo round-the-world (Lorne’s finger’s itch for charcoal), “it’s better if you relax. Get a feel for the people around here. We’ve got enough to worry about with the Wraith on our doorstep every Friday night. I say, if you have a yo-yo, go ahead and yo-yo to your heart’s content.”

Lorne smiles a little nervously. “Of course, sir.”

He doesn’t understand it at the time, but over the next years he sees a lot of metaphorical yo-yos on Atlantis, and gets to liking it: it’s as if all the world’s yo-yoers converged on this one spot. Then one day there’s some sort of sentient vegetable attack, and Lorne finds himself suddenly hooked into the brains of his jumper squadron and also the brains of everyone else in Atlantis. Afterwards, he can’t shake the feeling, the sense that he already knows everything about these people, that they already know him; that maybe they knew about him all along.

The next day, he’s got a pencil in his hand and a sheet of 8x10 computer paper beneath his palm. He’ll order canvasses and paints on the _Daedalus_ , but he has to do this now. He wonders who he should ask, or who he could draw without them noticing. Some of the scientists sit still a lot. But that’s not really what he wants to capture – or, it’s not that he wants to capture just one person. So he walks out as far as he can on the east pier and sits crosslegged on the dock, salt air in his lungs. Beneath the pencil, the spires of the city fall onto the paper as though they were always meant to be there.

 

 **Leitmotif**

 _Used as a literary term to denote a recurrent theme or unit. It is occasionally used in a broader sense to refer to an author’s favourite themes._

 

“Is it just me, or does this happen a lot?” Rodney shouts, ducking behind a tree.

John lays down some cover fire so that Ronon and Teyla can converge on their position.

“What, you mean, mortal danger, the team in jeopardy, that kind of thing?”

Ronon and Teyla come running up to crouch beside Rodney.

“No, no. Well, yes, that part, but everything else – we arrive, we get along, then there’s some ridiculous miscommunication,” Rodney pauses as the other three fire through the tree cover at the locals who are trying to kill them with Genii-style guns, “and we end up in mortal peril!”

Ronon sights carefully, stunning one of the people taking cover behind another copse of trees. “That’s not all the time,” he says, looking through his sight for another target. “Sometimes there’s a miscommunication, and then we have to do ritual penance.”

“Enemy approaching at nine o’clock,” Teyla warns, turning and firing at the group trying to flank them.

“But, still: miscommunication, followed by disaster,” Rodney insists, as he joins Teyla in covering their nine.

“We go on three,” John says, his fingers quickly pointing out the route they’re about to take. “Down that path to the valley, I’m on our six, Teyla takes point. The gate’s, what, half a klick from the base of the hill?”

“A little less,” Rodney answers.

John counts to three, and they break cover and start down the hill, tumbling and crashing into one another but managing not to fall.

“So, assuming that you’re right,” John says, as they start the sprint to the gate, “what exactly do you suggest?”

“I do not believe that is Rodney’s point,” Teyla grunts a moment later, running ahead of Rodney.

“Down!” Ronon screams suddenly, and they all drop as bullets begin whizzing by. They manage to low-crawl to a nearby rock formation that provides some cover. John and Ronon start scanning the treeline for the sniper.

“Thank you, Teyla, yes,” Rodney puffs, automatically turning to cover their twelve. “The point is, why can’t anyone in this backward galaxy just say what they mean?”

“Oh, this is a complaint,” John realises. “Sorry, I thought we were doing a teambuilding rant.”

Then John stills Ronon with a hand to his shoulder and points carefully at a glint of light in the bushes. Ronon fires his stunner, a sudden grunt from the treeline testifying to his accuracy.

“Well, I guess the galaxy’s more interesting this way,” John says as they get back into crouches, ready to start the last hundred yards to the gate.

Ronon runs backwards, taking over John’s position as John goes up to point. “Besides,” Ronon adds, “you’re all just as bad. I don’t remember the last time either of you said what you meant.”

“Yeah,” Rodney’s out of breath now, but keeping up, “But we never say ‘come have a feast and some dancing’ when we really mean ‘if you say yes, you agree to marry all our sons and daughters and grow beans.’”

Teyla starts dialing the DHD. “It is a question of context, I suppose,” she says, and then, “Atlantis, this is Teyla. We are coming in hot.”

Chuck’s voice crackles in their headsets. _“Noted.”_

“So, miscommunication and disaster, huh?” John asks as they step into Atlantis, right on schedule.

Rodney shrugs. “I’m just saying.”

 

 **Metonymy**

 _A figure of speech in which the name of an attribute of a thing is substituted for the thing itself. Metonymy works by the co-incidence of and contiguity (association) between two concepts, whereas metaphor works by the similarity between them. Metonymy, unlike metaphor, does not bring two things together in order to transfer qualities from one to another, but rather because they tend to be found together. For example, there is nothing crown-like about a monarch, but “the crown” is a common metonym for a king or queen._

 

Two weeks later, in an Entruvian jail cell whose floor seems to be comprised at least partially of animal dung, Rodney holds out for almost ten minutes before breaking out the I-told-you-so.

“I told you so.”

“Fine, McKay, you were right. Now let’s figure a way out of here.” Sheppard is already poking at the bases of the metal bars, trying to find a loose one.

“Okay, but I just want it noted for the record.” Rodney starts on the bars on the other side of the door.

“In the event of your grisly death, I will be sure to tell the world about your prescience,” Sheppard assures him.

“Maybe it’s you,” Rodney says, harsher than he intends. “Maybe it’s because you piss people off, and I just happen to be standing next to you at the time.”

“Yeah, I’m the one who pisses people off,” John mutters, and reaches for the next bar. Rodney blanches.

“You’re the one who got us thrown in here,” he snaps back, gritting his teeth.

There had been a moment when . . . he remembers with fondness the golden time they spent working with Mirla’s people, Sheppard’s thigh next to his as they sat together at the banquet, when they just happened to be sitting next to each other, coincidentally.

“Well, maybe, instead of complaining about it, you could do your actual job and find us a way to escape,” John says, hands pulling at the bars as if to force them out of the concrete by pure will.

After a long time in the cold cell – hours, maybe, they took Rodney’s watch – they’re sitting on the hard, manure-packed ground in silent defeat. The bars aren’t moving, there are no windows, and they have nothing but their hands to dig with.

“Well, maybe Ronon and Teyla got away and will come rescue us.” Rodney attempts an upbeat tone, which never works for him.

Just then, a wiry little man with an eyepatch over one eye shows up at the cell door, flanked by half a dozen armed men. “Which one of you is Atlantis?” he demands, holding up a wicked-looking sword.

Rodney doesn’t like the sound of this.

“Who’s asking?” Sheppard says casually, leaning against the wall like he’s at a party.

“The Throne of Entruvos is asking!” the man snarls.

Sheppard squares off against the guy. “I represent Atlantis. Where, by the way, our leader is probably very angry at you for kidnapping us – ” Sheppard stops talking as the man with the sword unlocks the door, pulls Sheppard out, and gets the sword against his neck while slamming the gate shut again. Rodney grips the bars anxiously.

“You’ll do,” the man says, as he hauls Sheppard off.

-

Hours later, Sheppard is returned, covered in sweat and dirt, with a gash on one arm that oozes blood.

“Jesus, Sheppard, what happened?” Rodney demands as he helps him to sit.

“Pretty much that movie with Russell Crowe and the slavery and the Colosseum,” John answers, wincing.

“A gladiator ring? Are you serious?”

Sheppard spares some energy to glare at him. “I didn’t get into this state playing Monopoly, Rodney.”

“We need to get out of here,” Rodney grits out. But it’s stone and metal: too low-tech for him to work any miracles.

-

The next day, the same guy with the eyepatch shows up at their cell, with the same toughs backing him up.

“Which one of you is Atlantis?” he demands.

John is on his feet, wincing as yesterday’s bruises and pulled muscles make themselves known. “I am,” he says quickly, and is dragged away.

Rodney waits to see if he comes back.

-

On the fourth day, when Sheppard is tossed back into the cell, there’s a nasty puncture wound in his thigh.

On the fifth day, Rodney is ready.

“Which one of you is Atlantis?” Eyepatch asks.

John, feverish and still bleeding, struggles to get up. “I am,” he grinds out.

“No,” Rodney says, approaching the bars. “I am.”

The man on the other side of the bars grins at him, his teeth perfect and white. “You don’t look like much of a fighter,” he says, pulling Rodney out of the cell and ignoring Sheppard’s protests in the background. “You’re not like your friend.”

“No,” Rodney mutters, half to himself, as he’s pushed down the musty corridors and given a sword. “I’m just the guy who stands next to him.”


	3. Volume III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> N-S

**Narration**

 _A narrative is a text, composed in any medium, which describes a sequence of real or unreal events. It derives from the Latin verb _narrare,_ which means “to recount.”_

 

“So, he had a sword,” Radek prompts. Ronon nods an affirmative. “And he was fighting with it?”

“Not doing too bad, either,” Ronon allows, grinning widely. “Course, the guy he was fighting looked about thirteen. I guess they matched them up with people of equal skill to make the games more interesting.”

Radek laughs, that low, gleeful chuckle that Ronon’s gotten used to lately.

“It’s a good thing you and Teyla arrived when you did,” Radek says, stabbing a piece of meat with his fork and bringing it to his mouth.

Ronon shrugs and swallows his mouthful of bread. “Yeah, I guess an hour of single combat matches was enough for McKay.”

“Hmmm,” Radek agrees. They sit quietly for a while, the buzz of conversation in the commissary filling the silence.

“So,” Ronon says finally, taking another bite, “You and Elizabeth, huh?”

There’s a clatter as Radek drops his fork. “Where did you hear that?”

“Teyla told me. Though, according to her, if I’d been in the gate room a couple days after that vegetable attack, I could’ve heard it for myself.”

Radek flushes bright red and covers his face with one hand.

“Relax,” Ronon says, amused.

“It was only one time,” Radek hisses. “And now you’re saying, is all over the base?”

“Kinda.”

Radek says some words that sound like cursing.

“A lot of people got together after that weird device did that thing to our brains,” Ronon says, by way of comfort.

“Yes, I heard about Dr. Keller and that Marine, what’s his name, the one on Major Lorne’s team.”

“Thorstensen? I didn’t hear about that.”

“On examination table in the infirmary. They did not even pull the curtain all the way.”

“Huh.”

“So, ah,” Radek clears his throat, his blush mostly faded. “Who did you – get together with?” he asks, carefully.

“Nobody,” Ronon lies.

 

 **Open Couplet**

 _A couplet (two successive rhyming lines of verse) in which the meaning is not completed in the second line, but is carried forward into a third or fourth line; or perhaps into several lines, though this is rare._

 

Elizabeth shows interest when he asks her what she thinks, her head resting on his chest as she listens; in her quarters, legs tangled together in the heat, it seems ideal to Ronon, a perfect addition to their slow, sensuous nights.

When she asks Radek the next day, he stutters and refuses, stepping back as if to find the distance he’s been seeking since the incident in the conference room; that night, adrift together in the silence of the city, Elizabeth and Ronon have made a gap between their bodies: they each chase in vain the pleasure that the touch of the other usually excites.

It’s not until days later that he shows up at their door: nervous, all apologies; his hand comes up to stroke a line of touch down Ronon’s neck, three fingers firm and warm against his skin, as Elizabeth takes their hands and pulls them to her bed.

 

 **Picaresque**

 _From the Spanish,_ picaro _, meaning “rogue” or “rascal.” A popular subgenre of prose fiction which is usually satirical and depicts in realistic and often humorous detail the adventures of a roguish hero of low social class who lives by his wits in a corrupt society, often with a trusty companion with whom he travels._

 

“Uh, no,” she tries, pushing the amorous boy away, “I can’t.”

“You would refuse the hospitality of our village?” the Mayor-guy cries from a few seats away, sounding hurt and a little bit drunk.

Cadman shakes her head emphatically. “No! We would never refuse your hospitality. Would we, Simpson?”

“We certainly wouldn’t,” Simpson agrees, fending off a golden youth of her own.

“Then why do you insult us by refusing the comforts we have to offer?” Mayor-guy demands.

“Oh,” Cadman says. “Well, there’s a perfectly good reason.”

“Yes,” Simpson adds helpfully, overselling it. “Perfectly good.” Cadman elbows her in the stomach.

By now, the whole table has gone quiet to see how this will play out. The tousle-haired Greek gods sitting next to them have stopped it with the wandering hands, at least.

“I, uh,” Cadman tries. “I owe my love to another.”

“Yeah, me too,” Simpson jumps on the bandwagon.

The people at the head of the table confer quietly with the Mayor-guy. “And this means you cannot partake of innocent amusements like these?” He gestures at the two muscle-bound, loincloth-adorned sixteen-year-olds, whom someone had been kind enough to coat in warm oil.

“In our culture, yes, that’s totally what it means,” she answers, ignoring the pouty face that her gift-boy has just put on.

“Very well,” says the Mayor-guy, and they breathe a sigh of relief. Then he calls out to the servants: “Bring out the women!”

Two young girls, buxom and straw-haired, oiled and attired just like the boys, come up to the table.

Cadman buries her face in her hands.

-

The mob isn’t really all that angry – in fact, they only seem to be mobbing because it’s expected of them – so the two of them don’t have to run for long.

“Lieutenant, I hate to keep saying it, but we need to figure out a way to survive on this planet, and that means more than two days in a village at a time. I need at least a month to repair this thing,” Simpson holds up the offending gate crystal, “And it would help if we didn’t have to constantly pick up and go from place to place.”

“Listen, Simpson, I didn’t see you stepping in to explain things to those nice people.”

Simpson sighs. “I know. I froze. It was a good try, anyway – you couldn’t have predicted that they’d assume we were just being coy, and _really_ wanted hot lesbian action.” She pauses, smiling ruefully. “And call me Sarah. I know I’m new on your team, but I’m not a Marine.”

Cadman shrugs. “You can call me Laura, then. Doesn’t McKay call all the scientists by their last names?”

“Yes, and it makes me feel like I’m in tenth grade gym class.”

“It’s probably just because he can never remember first names,” Laura laughs, clapping her new scientist on the back. “C’mon, let’s see if the next village is willing to feed and house our poor selves.”

-

The next village is willing, and they hang out quietly for a week. Simpson works on the crystal while Cadman lifts heavy things as payment for food and shelter. It goes well, right up until the thing with the aqueduct.

“It’s still under construction, but we’re very proud of it,” the Mayor-lady says, sounding very proud of it.

“Wow,” Sarah answers, overselling it again, “it’s really great!” It kind of is, actually: shining, clean water distributed evenly with little waste. “But listen, I learned a little something about water distribution systems during my undergraduate degree. . .”

When Laura wakes up in the middle of the night to find their little cabin flooded with water, they beat a stealthy retreat to avoid the whole mob situation.

“Remind me again why we couldn’t stay at the place with the glistening man-boys?” Sarah asks, as they stumble half-dressed through thorn-bushes in the dark.

“It would’ve been _wrong,_ Simpson,” Laura answers, sighing a little herself at the memory of her own glistening man-boy. Moving determinedly forward, she then smacks her face on a low-hanging branch.

“Gotcha,” Sarah says, pushing past her.

-

The third village has fallen on hard times, though it looks like it was once much more prosperous, with large stone-and-mortar dwellings standing empty. As a result, real-estate is at an all-time low, so the villagers don’t mind them hunkering down in one of the abandoned buildings. As far as food goes, they don’t have any to spare, but they agree to take Cadman with them on their hunts and let her have what she kills.

“So we’re dependent on your ability to hunt – what is it again?” Sarah looks up from the crystal and peers at Cadman from behind her little gold-rimmed glasses.

“From the description, giant man-eating rabbits.”

“Okay. Maybe I’ll hold off on unpacking.” This with a wide grin only slightly marred by the thorn-scratches on Sarah’s face.

“Hey, have a little faith,” Laura grins back. “I’m your team leader. Plus, I’m great with a bow.”

To everyone’s surprise – the villagers especially can’t get over it – Cadman manages to bring down one of the bunny-things, which is, terrifyingly, actually more like a long-eared rat, and about the size of a deer. One of the locals helps her carve it and accepts the pelt in trade for some vegetables and bread. Simpson is impressed, and life goes on pretty nicely for a few days.

Then, fetching water from the town pump, Cadman hears the sound of an escalating argument. She can hear Simpson’s voice in her head telling her to _not get involved_ , but then a woman comes running, screaming, into the town square, and launches herself into Cadman’s arms.

“Whoa, what’s the problem?” she asks, looking around nervously for anyone who might be chasing her.

“It’s my husband, he says he’s going to kill me!” the woman shouts. She’s got a nasty black eye and is clutching a little canvas bag that looks to be stuffed with clothing and a loaf of bread: probably all she could grab while trying to escape.

Cadman comes to a decision. “Okay, look, I’ll get you out of town.”

They run into a couple of local guys who don’t take kindly to that idea, though, and Cadman is forced to break a few limbs. Eventually, she gets the woman to the forest and points out the way to the next village.

“Just don’t mention my name,” she warns.

“Oh, thank you so much,” the woman says, sobbing and clutching at Laura’s shoulders. “I would never have escaped without you, thank you, thank you!”

“Okay, no problem,” Laura answers, peeling the woman away. “Off you go.”

When she gets back to town square, well-pleased with herself, the locals are there to greet her.

“Hey guys, what’s up?” she calls cheerfully.

“Did you just help the thief to escape with the last of our ancestral wealth?” the Mayor-guy asks.

“Uh,” Cadman says. In the crowd, she sees two guys who look pretty familiar, bruised and beaten with a few broken limbs.

“That’s her,” one of them says.

“Oh, Jesus _Christ_ ,” Cadman mutters, and sprints into the streets.

-

“Look at the bright side,” Sarah pants as they wade through the swamp.

Cadman trips on an underwater root and falls into the sludge. Pulling something dark green and half-rotten off of her face, she asks, “The bright side?”

“Yeah,” Sarah answers, giving her a hand up to her feet, “I’m at least halfway done repairing the crystal.”

-

“It’s great to have you back, Lieutenant, Doctor,” Elizabeth says warmly. “You two had us worried for a minute there.”

“Well, there was no need for concern,” Cadman answers. “Right, Sarah?”

“You betcha,” Simpson agrees. “With the two of us on the job? Forget about it.”

Elizabeth nods proudly. “I look forward to reading your report.”

Cadman and Simpson exchange a wordless, worried glance.

“Oh, count on it,” Cadman blurts, finally.

Simpson nods enthusiastically, overselling it like she always does. “It’ll be a page-turner,” she says brightly.

Smiling at Elizabeth, Cadman elbows her discreetly in the stomach.

 

 **Quibble**

 _An instance of the use of ambiguous, prevaricating, or irrelevant language or arguments to evade a point at issue._

 

“What’s new, Rodney?” Kate asks, sitting in the chair across from him.

“Not much. Simpson’s back from walkabout or whatever, so I’ve at least got one decent engineer working for me again. And Zelenka’s been in a good mood lately, which is a relief – you have no idea how annoying that guy can get when he’s being pissy.”

“And you?” Kate takes a sip of her coffee.

“I’ve been having back pain again, thanks to all the running around on alien planets and whatnot. And I think I may be suffering from clinical depression; granted, I haven’t had much of a loss of appetite, and I haven’t been sleeping very much, but you can put all that down to the conditions we’re living under here.” Rodney pauses, apparently for breath.

“Yes, Teyla told me about your latest off-world mission,” Kate says, stepping in. “Something about imprisonment and gladiator matches?” Actually, Kate had read the mission report.

“Yes, yes, another life-endangering mission with Sheppard,” Rodney says, waving a hand.

“So you think that the mission going wrong was Colonel Sheppard’s fault?”

He fidgets, crosses a knee and uncrosses it. “No. Really, it’s no one’s fault, it’s just the way our luck always runs.”

She frowns theatrically. “I didn’t think that you believed in luck.”

“Oh, believe me,” he says, with that little half-laugh of his, “I didn’t before coming here. But after a while I began to ask myself: what is luck, anyway? It’s the outcome of probability, based on the initial conditions.”

Kate tries not to think about that night with Teyla, about her own ambiguous, noncommittal touches and that first cautious kiss of Teyla’s lips to her throat. “So what were the initial conditions on this mission?”

He laughs again. “Pretty much, me and Sheppard and a bizarre society where telling someone where you’re from is the same as challenging them to mortal combat.”

“But surely the same thing would’ve happened to anyone who went there and said they were from Atlantis,” Kate presses.

“I guess. Anyway, it was awful – they threw us in this cold cell with a floor made out of dirt and manure, and came every day to drag one of us off to the arena.”

“Mmmm. So, if the same thing could’ve happened to anyone, why do you think that you and Colonel Sheppard were part of the cause?”

“I didn’t say that we were.”

“You said that you and Colonel Sheppard were the initial conditions.”

Rodney pauses, scratching his thumb against his index finger in that nervous gesture of his. “Well, you could say that Sheppard and I haven’t been getting along so well lately. But that happens all the time, and you’re probably right – the mission would’ve gone wrong for whoever went to Entruvos. I should probably stop blaming myself and just let it go.” Rodney nods firmly as if he’s just had a breakthrough.

“Are you two still not getting along, now that you’re back from Entruvos?”

“It’s not that we don’t get along. We get along fine.”

She waits.

“It’s just awkward sometimes, is all.”

“Awkward.”

“Well, it happens occasionally, doesn’t it, that people who work together get to know each other a little too well, and it can get, hm, uncomfortable.”

“So you feel as if you know too much about Colonel Sheppard.”

“No, no, it’s not like that at all. Who knows anything at all about Sheppard? It’s just that sometimes you need a break from a person. If they’re around all the time, it can get stifling.”

“Okay. When are you going to take a break, then?”

“What?”

“You say you need a break. I’ll write you a note, you can have some time off the gate team, time to concentrate on your work in the lab, uninterrupted.”

“I . . . that doesn’t sound like the right prescription,” Rodney stutters.

“I can understand that,” Kate soothes. “You wouldn’t want to lose your off-world work. All right, so you go on missions, but stop other contact with the Colonel: your chess games, meals together, team movie nights. How about that?”

“Yeah,” Rodney sighs, clearly miserable at the prospect, “that sounds like a solution.”

Kate allows herself a little laugh. “Rodney, clearly whatever’s going on between you and the Colonel, you need to work it out with him, not avoid him. Feeling awkward with someone may only be a temporary stage on the way to a deeper relationship.”

Rodney blushes, and _oh_. Interesting. “I don’t have that kind of relationship with Colonel Sheppard,” he says quickly.

“I mean friendship, Rodney,” she says gently. Then, clearing her throat, she adds, “Just because you can keep your friendship casual doesn’t mean that you should.” And the slight angle of Teyla’s bent knee against the white sheets, and the line of her biceps as she lay propped on her elbows, and the way she’d kissed Kate, reckless and unrestrained.

“Fine, fine, I’ll talk to Sheppard,” Rodney grumbles, his grumble belied by his lingering blush.

“Excellent.” Counting it a victory, she decides to let the topic go, at least for now. “So, tell me more about this gladiator ring of yours.”

 

 **Refrain**

 _A line, or part of a line, or a group of lines, which is repeated in the course of a poem, sometimes with slight changes, and usually at the end of each stanza._

 

“So, what’s up next on the mission docket?” Kate asks her, brushing their fingers together briefly as she reaches for her pie. Teyla draws her hand back carefully before answering.

“Nothing complicated; we are going to visit some old trading partners on P8N-2Z3.”

Kate nods to show interest and keeps her hands on her side of the table. “The place with the purple flowers? Weren’t you just there a month ago?”

“Yes, but they have now processed some parts of the plant and have flour to trade.”

Kate listens to a description of the plant: she can’t open her mouth to speak.

-

But she can’t seem to help herself. She tries again, the little touches that worked the first time, that drew Teyla’s mouth to her body.

“I’m running Simpson and Cadman through a workout in the gym if you’d like to join us,” Teyla offers, in a friendly sort of way, when they meet in the corridor.

“Sarah Simpson? Isn’t she an engineer?” Kate runs her fingers down Teyla’s elbow, casually, lightly.

“As it turns out, almost any situation can have its dangers,” Teyla answers coolly, never losing her warm smile as she takes a step backwards.

“I’d love to join you, but I have a client.”

Kate watches as Teyla walks away with a wave and a raincheck. She can’t open her mouth to speak.

-

It’s late at night when she finds herself doing it again: she’s walked Teyla home after dinner, and at her door, Kate lets her thumb graze Teyla’s palm.

This time, Teyla has none of her usual grace; she jerks her hand back, then holds both hands up, palm out. Teyla breathes in sharply through her nose, then out again, as if she’s reached a breaking point. When she speaks, her voice is less controlled than it usually is.

“I’m sorry, Kate, I cannot do this,” she says, lowering her hands slowly as she speaks.

“What can’t you do?” Kate keeps her face open, listening.

Teyla’s jaw twitches. “I cannot be your – your _fuckbuddy_. As you said, we can be friends.”

Kate doesn’t get shocked, so instead she just asks, curiously, “Where did you learn that word?”

“We had a similar word on Athos for this kind of desire. It is not a desire I share, anymore, to have sex solely for a moment’s pleasure.”

With that, Teyla turns, and opens her door, and she’s on the other side of it and it’s about to close in Kate’s face when she gets herself together.

“Wait,” she says, and her own voice sounds desperate, now, uncontrolled. Too loud.

Teyla pauses. “Yes?” she asks. She sounds so tired.

Kate opens her mouth to speak.

 

 **Synecdoche**

 _From the Greek, “taking up together.” A figure of speech in which the part stands for the whole, and thus something else is understood within the thing mentioned._

 

Rodney’s hands dance as they go through the event horizon; on the other side, in Atlantis, they continue without pause, elegant, excited, precise. In the briefing, they sketch out the possibilities for the new power source: palms up to offer alternate modes of energy consumption; thumb and forefinger together to compare and contrast setup possibilities; fingers raised in sequence to list the materials and manpower necessary to get it running. Always, always, in motion. John interrupts, his voice too loud for the conference room.

“McKay, we don’t need the engineering details. Will you just get to the good part?” he says, his own fingers tapping the tabletop to communicate impatience.

Rodney’s hands still.

“Right. Well. The upshot is: this could, properly implemented, come to replace ZPMs as our main power source.”

“With the difference being, it’s renewable.” John finishes.

“Yes, thank you for your extremely qualified opinion, Colonel, I was getting to that.” One hand is clutching the edge of the table, now, as if to prevent itself from flying upwards again. John imagines those hands in motion on his body: curved around his hips, palms running over his chest, fingertips tracing his jawline.

“Oh, you were _getting_ to it,” John mocks. “We’ve got better things to do than sit and listen to you listen to yourself, McKay.” It’s not that different from their usual sarcastic banter, except in all the ways it is.

“Well, this sounds like a great discovery, anyway,” Elizabeth breaks in, looking a little confused.

“Yes. It will be extremely useful,” Rodney says, but his hands are already moving to pack up his laptop, unplugging the cords and coiling them neatly around his palms.

“Come back to me when you know more.” Elizabeth’s sharp glance at John says: _Come back to me when you’ve fixed this._

-

John thinks he’s going to have a rational, adult discussion with McKay about their working relationship right up until he opens his mouth.

“Okay, what the fuck is your problem?” are the words that he says once he’s got McKay alone in his lab.

And it’s as if Rodney was waiting for him to come in, waiting for the opportunity: he doesn’t hesitate, already talking as he turns to face John, as his gaze pins John to the wall. “What is my problem? I’m not the one who turned into a psycho after Entruvos,” he spits back.

“Oh, you don’t think so? How about turning into a psycho _on_ Entruvos?”

“What?” McKay’s voice does that thing it does, that high-pitched incredulousness that says _I do not understand how it is physically possible for you to be this stupid._

“You know what I mean, McKay,” John growls back, getting into Rodney’s space. “It’s not your job to stand in for me.”

Rodney’s hands are white-knuckled and furious where they grip the lab table behind him. “It’s not my job to let you die,” he grits out. “But never mind that. In Sheppard’s world, it’s my job to sit next to you at farmers’ feasts and it’s my job to take the jumper seat next to you while you bleed and it’s my job _not to mention any of it_ , it’s my job to pretend like none of it ever happened, but it’s not my job to stand in for you when it really counts. Fucking typical.”

John had backed Rodney up against the table; now, punctuating his last words, Rodney brings a hand up to push against Sheppard’s chest, the way you do when you want to pick a fight in a seedy bar, to push against Sheppard’s chest and shove him out of Rodney’s space.

John’s shocked by the feeling of Rodney’s hands on his body in anger, by the rage that curls in his belly and the way his own hand clenches into a fist at his side when Rodney pushes him.

His voice goes soft. “Is that what you want?” he asks, forcing his fist to uncurl and glancing down at his own chest where Rodney shoved him. John reaches out, lightning-quick, and grabs Rodney’s wrist, bringing his hand palm-up between them, as if it were an exhibit at a trial.

“You want to get your hands on me?” John asks, trying for an accusatory tone and failing, failing. His fingertips smooth against the soft skin below Rodney’s palm.

Rodney doesn’t say anything for a long time, his eyes on John’s fingers where they encircle his wrist. When he speaks, his voice breaks on a single word. “Yes.”

The last of the rage drains from him as he looks into Rodney’s face, at his lips, slightly open, and the stubborn curve of his jaw. Slowly, John bends his head.

When his lips meet Rodney’s palm, it feels like the last connection in a circuit, like electricity finally set free. When his lips meet Rodney’s palm, it’s the kiss that he didn’t give Rodney at the harvest-fest and it’s the kiss that Rodney didn’t give him when he stood between John and the guards on Entruvos and it’s the way they moved together in perfect harmony while Atlantis fused their minds into one.

“You’re not expendable,” John says, when he straightens up.

“Neither are you, asshole,” Rodney answers, so softly.

Then Rodney’s kissed palm is cupping John’s neck, drawing him in. John closes his eyes as they come together, as they kiss, as they occupy – finally – the same space in the same moment.


	4. Volume IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> T-Z

**Topothesia**

 _The description of an imaginary place._

 

Every day, Chuck traces his fingertips over the constellation-patterns for planets he’ll never visit, for solar systems he’ll only read about in mission reports.

He doesn’t mind. He has a name for every constellation. When he dials the gate, he imagines that the world he’s calling out to is coming into being at that moment, whispered into reality by the star-positions that describe it. When another planet dials into Atlantis, he thinks of the precious set of symbols that bring the city into existence, again and again, and of the fragility of this place, this planet that is determined only by the relation of their sun to a thousand others across the galaxy.

Chuck knows every address for every planet they’ve visited, even the ones that’ve been stricken from the database. It seems important not to forget all the different ways that the world can be split open.

 

 **Unreliable Narrator**

 _A literary device in which the credibility of the narrator is seriously compromised. This unreliability can be due to psychological instability, a powerful bias, a lack of knowledge, or even a deliberate attempt to deceive the reader or audience._

 

After discussing the matter with the local inhabitants, who professed themselves more than capable of handling their aqueduct problems despite our offers to help, it was decided that our numerous skills in technology (Dr. Simpson) and weapons (Lt. Cadman) would be put to better use in aid of another village to the south, where they were in need of labor to prepare for a harsh winter.

Lorne snorts and tosses the report down onto his desk. Then, curious, he picks it up and begins to read again.

-

“So, which parts of this are true?” he asks, setting a package down just inside the door. His eyes are still on the report.

“Don’t you knock?” Cadman demands, standing up and going to a very put-upon version of attention.

“Don’t you knock, _Major_. We will adhere at all times to policy and procedure, Lieutenant.”

“Even when you’re – ”

“Even then,” he answers, finally looking up from the report to meet her eyes.

“Kinky,” she says, and steps into his space, pushing his hand and the file it’s holding out of the way and kissing him wet and deep.

“Mmmm,” he says, when she pulls away. “I missed you while you were gone.”

“Oh yeah? I didn’t miss you at all,” she says, her hand squeezing his ass.

“Yes, and speaking of your blatant lies,” he pauses while she laughs at this, “what’s this bit about coming to a mutually agreeable decision with the local inhabitants?”

“We snuck out of town in the dead of night to avoid an angry mob,” she says, leaning in to suck little kisses onto his neck.

“Check,” he says, bringing the report into the limited space between them, setting it against her shoulder, and scribbling a note while Cadman’s teeth brush his throat. “And this part, where local customs were incompatible with military procedure? That’s a sex ritual, right?”

“Sorta,” she says, both hands on his ass now. “They wanted us to avail ourselves of all their oiled-up sixteen year old studs,” she answers.

“Hm.” He scribbles something else on the paper. “Okay, Lieutenant – oh, that’s nice – uh, I’m signing off on this report.”

“Cool,” she says, and walks over to her bed. “Well? You coming? You are off-duty, right?”

“You don’t want to open your present?” He glances back at the package he’d brought in with him.

“Thought you were my present,” she says, grabbing the box up from the floor and using her pocket knife to open it.

“The _Apollo_ arrived with a delivery while you were stuck on that planet,” he says, sitting next to her on the bed. “I was a little worried that we wouldn’t ever get the chance to use this.”

“Aha!” she crows, delighted. “Exactly to my specifications. Are you saying you want to give it a test drive? Right now?”

“Hey, if you’ve got a yo-yo, you should yo-yo to your heart’s content,” he says, pulling off his shirt.

She follows suit, getting naked and stepping into the harness. “Man, it’s been forever since I’ve done this. You know, one day you are going to explain this stupid yo-yo philosophy of yours. It sounds like one of Colonel Sheppard’s dumb sayings.”

“If I explain it, it’ll take all the mystery out,” Lorne answers easily, handing her the lube and crawling onto the bed. He watches as she gets the dildo into place, jutting up from between her thighs. He’s already hard.

“Oh, they make these things a lot nicer than they did when I was a kid,” Cadman says, wriggling her hips as she slides the slick double-ended dildo up inside her.

“Will you get over here?” Lorne says, exasperated.

“Patience, Major.” She urges him up onto his hands and knees and gets her fingers inside him, cool and slippery.

“Hey,” Lorne answers, between gasps, “I’ve been going it alone for a month. We don’t all get to satisfy our animal urges with dozens of golden-skinned boys.”

“Mmmm,” she says, pushing the dildo against his thigh to get a little friction on her clit, “if I’d known you wanted a boy to play with, I could’ve brought you one home.”

He laughs, then pushes back against her fingers. “Jesus, do it, already.”

She lubes the dildo up a little more before pushing it into him, just a little, twisting her hips slightly to get a little more purchase.

“Besides,” she says, sweat beading on her face, her chest, her thighs, “there were hardly dozens.”

“Oh yeah?” Lorne asks, gritting his teeth a little as she starts to fuck him in earnest.

“Hardly more than, fuck.” A jolt of pleasure works through her as the dildo rubs against her g-spot. “Seven, seven or eight, I’d say,” she laughs, grinning a kiss onto the top of his shoulder. Her breasts are pushed into his back, nipples sliding on skin.

“Ngh, god,” Lorne groans. “I knew you were a cheater.”

“Yeah,” her thrusts are finding a rhythm now, pushing them both faster, the pressure building up inside her. “I, they’d ask,” _thrust_ , “do you have a boyfriend?” _thrust_ , “and I’d say – oh jesus,” _thrust_ , “I’d say,” _thrust_ , “nope, open for business here,” _thrust_ , “Evan who?”

Lorne chokes out a laugh and reaches down to get a hand on his cock, closing his eyes against the perfect feeling of her breasts on his back and her dick in his ass. “I guess I’m pretty forgettable,” he gasps, stroking himself hard and fast.

“Yeah,” she says, and puts her hand over his. “Forgettable.”

 

 **Verfremdungseffekt**

 _The German for “alienation effect,” this is an important element in Brecht’s theory of drama. Brecht’s view was that both audience and actors should preserve a state of critical detachment from the play and its presentation in performance._

 

“I don’t really know how to do this,” Kate says, finally, sitting next to Teyla on the bed. “I mean, I tell other people how to do this, but.”

“There is not a user’s manual for this kind of thing,” Teyla says, smiling, close-lipped and crooked.

“Of course not; and that’s exactly what I’d tell someone coming to me with a relationship question. ‘How do I open up to my partner?’ the person would ask, and I would say – ”

Teyla needs to interrupt: she pushes a stray lock of hair out of Kate’s eyes, brushing her fingers against her skin.

“I’m sorry,” Kate says, meeting Teyla’s eyes.

“I know,” she answers, and kisses her softly on the lips.

“Never done this before.”

“Neither have I,” Teyla admits, sighing. “It is not the kind of thing I have time for.”

Kate reaches out and holds Teyla’s hand in her own. The grip is strong and sure. Kate swallows, as if forcing herself to speak.

“I’m not sure how to be with you, Teyla. I don’t know where I am.”

Teyla meets her eyes again, then, smiling broadly. “Oh, I think we can find you in there somewhere,” she says, slowly, deftly unbuttoning Kate’s blouse one-handed.

Kate smiles back and crawls closer to Teyla, not bothering to hide her eagerness. Confronted with the white of her teeth and the crinkling of her eyes, something breaks loose in Teyla’s chest. She could live in that smile.

“Look,” Teyla says, palms on Kate’s collarbones, “here you are.” She skates her fingers down, cupping Kate’s breasts, then further down to press one thumb into her belly button. “And here.” Teyla leans in and kisses Kate’s lips again. “And here.”

Kate kisses Teyla’s jaw, and Kate’s arms come up to hold her, and for just one moment, Teyla wonders how she got here, in the arms of an alien in the city of the Ancestors, lost to this feeling that stirs wild under her skin.

Then the moment is gone, and Kate nudges at her. “You all done finding me, or is there more territory to cover?”

“I think we still have some work to do,” Teyla answers wryly, thumbing open the fly of Kate’s jeans.

 

 **Whitespace**

 _The portion of a page left unmarked: the space between graphics, margins, gutters, space between columns, space between lines of type or figures and objects drawn or depicted. An important element of design, whitespace is what enables the objects it surrounds to exist in the first place._

 

“I want to fuck you,” John says softly, his teeth catching against Rodney’s earlobe, and it’s the last thing that either of them says for a long time.

John’s already got Rodney half-out of his clothes, his shirt pushed up and his pants unzipped as John’s fingers grasp greedily at skin, as his palms rub friction-red spots against Rodney’s sides, as he shoves one hand down the back of Rodney’s pants to squeeze at his ass. And Rodney gets his mouth on John’s throat, sucking hard and fast, hot little             noises             humming into the space           between Rodney’s lips and John’s skin, his hands fumbling at John’s clothes until he’s got John’s dick in his hands, in both hands, gripping and stroking.

They get rid of the rest of their clothes fast, pants and shirts and underwear tossed aside until they’re pressed naked together, hair scratching and sweat slicking, Rodney climbing John’s body, pushing him down into the bed while John grasps greedily at Rodney’s thighs. As he starts to stroke, Rodney slides his ass along the stiff underside of John’s cock, all friction, and John doesn’t  
                          speak  
                                              but he makes a sound, low in his throat, a moan, slipping from him as he grazes his teeth over Rodney’s nipple, as he fists Rodney’s cock and thrusts against the curve of his ass.

Rodney pulls a little tube from the pocket of his discarded trousers and wastes no time getting his fingers in his own ass, leaning back with one hand braced on John’s chest and the other thrusting up inside himself, making     space     inside himself and then John’s on him, John’s _in_ him, and there’s nothing between them except for  
                                    the blue of Rodney’s eyes, and  
                                              John’s hand where it touches Rodney’s waist gently, so gently, almost chaste, and                                                                               the sound of their bodies’ friction as they move together  
                                                                        fucking.

John thrusts up and Rodney presses down, both of them gasping now, eyes glazed, sweat trickling in to blur John's vision. His dick in Rodney's ass, and John feels

stretched

pulled open and filled as he pushes into Rodney's body, as he runs his thumb over the hard tip of Rodney's cock. It's glorious and sloppy and perfect and it can't last; John feels himself starting to come and gets a hand on Rodney's shoulder, gets a grip on Rodney's shoulder and                                                       oh

his lips begin to form a word  
                                                                            Rodney's name

but all his breath is in this kiss, his mouth and Rodney's sliding into place together, suddenly, inevitably, and John comes, overwhelmed by their bodies' presence together in space.

John speeds his strokes on Rodney's cock, and Rodney thrusts a few more times, back onto John's softening cock and forward into his hard palm, his mouth slipping down, his teeth sinking into John's shoulder as he  
cries out,

inarticulate.

 

 **Xenophanic**

 _Xenophanes was a native of Ionia and an itinerant poet who visited many parts of the Greek world. He was also a sillographer (a poet who satirizes particular schools of thought or individual doctrines). Thus ‘Xenophanic’ may be used to describe a wandering poet with a witty and satirical talent._

 

When they first walk into the city, Sirell wonders if they might not be the wanderers that he heard about from the guys two solar systems over.

When they begin to introduce themselves, he’s sure of it.

“Hello,” the leader says, “I’m Colonel John Sheppard, and this is – ”

“Rodney McKay! Teyla Emmagan! Ronon Dex!” Sirell exclaims happily, clasping each of their elbows in turn. “And John Sheppard, of course, it’s great to meet you. I’m B’tar Ren Sirell.”

Sheppard blinks attractively.

“You have heard of us?” Emmagan asks.

“Of course! And listen, I want you to be careful. Some people in this city would take advantage of newcomers like yourselves, but I have a space that is perfect for you, at a great rate.”

“Whoa whoa whoa,” McKay interrupts. “How do you know us? And what kind of space are you talking about? Because I’ve been in on these communal Pegasus-galaxy longhouse hotel things before and it almost always leads to someone’s son or daughter getting fresh with one of us and thence to the inevitable running through the dark in the mud with no boots.”

Sirell giggles a little; Rodney McKay is his favourite.

“Oh, you’re going to be great!” Sirell says. “Really. Let me show you the space.”

They eventually come along with him to the city centre, where the new lounge is just opening for the afternoon crowd.

“So, we’ll set you up over there. Don’t let the appearance fool you; the acoustics are fantastic. Go on, give it a shot.”

The wanderers look at each other nervously. “Uh, B’tar,” Sheppard begins, “I don’t think we’re on the same page here. What is it that you want us to do?”

“It better not be another sex ritual,” Dex mutters.

“Oh, I dunno,” Sheppard says amiably, leering sweetly at McKay, who rolls his eyes. Emmagan rolls her eyes, too.

Sirell finds the lights and turns them up a bit to better show off the space for the newcomers.

“Uh, Colonel,” McKay says suddenly, peering sharply at the spotlights on the stage and the red brick wall behind it, “am I crazy, or does that look a little like _Comedy at Club 54_?”

Sheppard takes a good look around at the little tables and the bar at the back, and then turns back to Sirell.

“B’tar, this is, uh, probably a silly question, and you should feel free to tell us to stop being so nuts, but is this – are you – ”

“Do you think we’re standup comedians?” McKay breaks in.

Sirell frowns. “The guys from two solar systems over said you were hilarious.”

There is a long, pregnant pause.

“Well,” Dex says, finally, “this does explain why we’ve been getting all that money thrown at us.”

Emmagan sighs and covers her face with one hand. “I am never taking any of you with me on missions ever again.”

Sirell gives them a broad smile. “Really, it’s a great act.”

 

 **Yarn**

 _A story or tale. The term derives from the nautical slang phrase ‘to spin a yarn’. It often has the connotation of a tallish or slightly improbable story._

 

Elizabeth laughs and kicks at Radek with a bare foot, pushing him away from her on the couch.

“That is blatantly untrue, Radek! I am shocked. Ronon,” she snaps her fingers, as if to jog her own memory, “what is that Satedan word again, the one that means ‘a teller of scurrilous untruths upon whom I must exact blood-red vengeance for the sake of my wronged family’?”

“ _Geelv_ ,” Ronon answers, laughing as he sips his wine, tilting his head into her lap. Elizabeth’s fingers trail pleasantly over his scalp.

“Yes, that. That is you, Radek, and don’t think I’m kidding.”

“I tell nothing but unvarnished truth,” Radek answers seriously, pushing his thumbs into Elizabeth’s arches.

“I will never believe that Colonel Sheppard accidentally got married to an intelligent _bear_ ,” Elizabeth says.

“She’ll believe anything if you rub her feet long enough,” Ronon advises. Radek grins and winks at him.

“It is completely true; I had the story independently from Rodney, before Ronon told me. There was a race of intelligent bears – ”

“Ritocks,” Ronon corrects.

“Yes, ritocks, and Colonel Sheppard can sometimes be too enthusiastic in greeting new people, so they thought he wanted to marry the ritock princess.”

As she laughs again, Elizabeth’s cheeks are flushed with the wine and the late night and the good company.

“S’true,” Ronon adds, leaning back comfortably against the couch. “I was there.”

“You see, Ronon backs me up,” Radek smiles triumphantly.

“Well, we all know how much he enjoys backing you up,” Elizabeth grins, and reaches for her wine again. Ronon flushes a little, remembering the night before.

“Mmmmm, yes, we should do that again soon,” Radek agrees.

There’s a long, comfortable pause before Elizabeth speaks again.

“All right, I’ll bite. You have worn me down. So Colonel Sheppard found himself engaged to a bear princess . . .”

“Ritock princess,” Ronon corrects again. “And it turns out that any man who wanted to marry her had to bring her whatever she asked for. But she didn’t ask for money or books or weapons; she only wanted Sheppard to find her three roses.” He winks at Radek from behind his hair.

Radek laughs, and picks up the thread of the story.

 

 **Zeugma**

 _From the Greek: “yoking” or “bonding.” A figure of speech in which the same word (verb or preposition) is applied to two others in different senses. For example, Evelyn’s description of Charles I as “Circled with his royal diadem and the affections of his people.”_

 

It’s been four years since they’ve had a party. Elizabeth doesn’t know how that’s even possible, but it’s true. The last time the whole of Atlantis was gathered together in one space was the day after they woke the Wraith.

There’s no cause for celebration this time. It’s not an Earth holiday or an Athosian festival or the day after they won a big battle. It’s just an ordinary Thursday, three days after they received a huge shipment of champagne on the _Apollo_ \- some sort of massive miscommunication at the shipping yard, it seems. But a miscommunication in their favour, at least.

They were ready for a party. Ever since the weird brainwave synchronization device (as Rodney called it) or mind-meld machine (as John called it) the mood of the city has become palpable, all of them feeling that little low-grade buzz that still binds them together. Even the new people feel it. When the champagne’s discovered, there’s no choice but to celebrate, because celebration is the mood that the city is in.

People are clinking their glasses and shouting, all of them a little loud and tipsy. Watson has Miko up on his shoulders so that she can see over the heads of the crowd; Ronon is arm-wrestling the Marines (and pretending that he’s not getting a piece of the action from Radek’s betting pool); even Rodney seems happy and easy, laughing at something Teyla is telling him (from the looks of it, she’s telling a story about a Wraith she killed that was _this big_ ).

There’s a lot of hooting and hollering of her name, so eventually Elizabeth gets up on the table, swaying a little bit herself.

“What is it that you wanted?” she inquires politely of the crowd (at the top of her voice).

“Speech!” John shouts from the back. And then they’re all shouting it, the hooligans: the room is filled with the city’s voices.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that,” Elizabeth shouts back.

“SPEECH!” they yell again, with a high-pitched “Wooooo!” from the back of the room thrown in for good measure. Probably John again; he has half a glass of champagne and then acts like he’s at a rock concert, every damn time.

Elizabeth raises her glass, her eyes, and her city from out of the sea. She begins to speak.

-

There are numerous acts of public licentiousness going on at the party, but Teyla doesn’t mind so much this time. Perhaps it’s the alcohol buzzing in her blood, warming her skin and loosening her tongue; perhaps it’s the sense of belonging; perhaps it’s the way that her lover is pushing her against the wall and sucking on her throat.

“Really, Kate, it is hardly appropriate.” She manages the serious tone right up until the end, when she ruins it with a giggle.

“Nope,” Kate answers, kissing her firmly on the lips. Her hair is a bit messy, and her shirt is askew from where Teyla’d had her hand up the back of it.

Kate grabs Teyla’s hand and pulls her back toward the party. “C’mon, let’s get some more champagne.”

Teyla lets herself get carried away by the festivities, the music, and Kate’s hand on hers.

-

Hours later, when the party’s winding down and people are wandering off to bed (if not to sleep), Rodney stands with John on a secluded corner of the balcony, warm night air swirling around them. Rodney’s got a nice little champagne buzz, an erection, and his hand down the back of John’s pants.

“Are we sure we want to do this here?” John asks, before getting his tongue back in Rodney’s mouth.

After a minute or two, Rodney pulls away slowly. “Where else,” he asks, breathless, “would we do this?”

The city is around them and behind them, lit up and sparkling on the water.

“I can’t think of a better place,” John admits.

In the dark, under the glittering Pegasus sky, Rodney takes a deep breath, John’s body in his hands, and his place in the universe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally conceived of as a sort of exercise in style. Actually...it was originally conceived as [a couple of random prompt-ficlets](http://archiveofourown.org/works/258485) that I wrote for eruthros and runpunkrun, in which I happened to use two of my favourite literary devices, zeugma and anthimeria. Then I thought...if I’ve done A and Z, why not try the ones in between, and make it an A-Z series of tiny ficlets on the general theme of communication? It turned into a bit more than that (the word “tiny” was especially ignored) and I ended up not using either of the two original ficlets, but it was fun anyhow.
> 
> I promise that these are all real literary terms, though some are more obscure than others. The definitions are drawn, variously, from _The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, Fourth Edition,_ from M.H. Abrams’ _Glossary of Literary Terms, Seventh Edition,_ , and from Wikipedia. And here I thought I’d never use those books. If you are interested in the literary genres and devices depicted here, please consult your local library.
> 
> Radek’s Czech folk tale about the girl who marries a basilisk is real: [The Three Roses](http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/kog/kog13.htm). Ronon’s Satedan folk tale is obviously made up, but was inspired by the wackiness and random plot twists of Eastern European folk tales.
> 
> Also, if you’re not yet tired of pretentious literary in-jokes used for McShep fic purposes, I recently posted [Enjambment](http://archiveofourown.org/works/258470) for your reading pleasure. It was originally part of this fic, but didn’t fit the overall structure, so hit the cutting room floor. Now it’s like a DVD extra.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] The New Atlantean Dictionary of Literary Terms: A Complete Reference in Four Volumes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12170283) by [exmanhater](https://archiveofourown.org/users/exmanhater/pseuds/exmanhater)




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